Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Broken

I was disappointed in myself for not throwing anything away yesterday.  I laid in bed bothered by it.  I guess I went through my work email again and deleted lots of stuff, but since I've done that a few times, and it doesn't really get rid of physical clutter, I feel I can't count it again.  Well, kinda.  Anyway, I threw stuff away today.

Today I threw away an Easter decoration.  Yesterday one of the kids dropped it and an ear fell of a bunny.  I was going to glue it back on, but today I noticed what I thought was another piece that broke off.  It's actually picture holder that I don't use, so I thought I'd get rid of it.  As I was throwing it away I realized the 2nd piece I found wasn't from that bunny.  The bunny it came off of is still ok without it, so I'm going to keep that one, minus the broken part.  I also threw away a broken tv tray.  The top has a crack in it, it's been there.  Tonight I noticed that the metal bar keeping the top together is unscrewed, and the hole is cracked open so a new screw would stay.  It's now sitting near the garbage, ready to head to the dumpster.

The other nice thing about getting rid of these items, is that it checks something off another list I have.  I printed out some monthly to-do organizing sheets, and something on this month's list was to fix something broken or throw it away if I don't have intentions of fixing it.  Two birds, one stone.

Monday, March 25, 2013

A Gold Box

I bought an Easter gift for my niece tonight. I KNOW I have gift bags - I have a ton, but the gift is kind of big and thought it might be nicer wrapped.  I have one roll of non-Christmas wrapping paper, that sits inside a gold box, accompanied by a roll of tissue paper and gift tags.  It's flowery, and would look nice wrapped around an Easter gift.  I've had this wrapping paper for years.  Probably for many years.  No, definitely for many years.  It was purchased from a school fundraiser that I probably bought before I moved into this apartment, and I've been here for 3 1/2 years.

I dug the gold box out from behind a crate filled with gift bags (yes, a crate) in my closet.  To my disappointment, there was only a small amount of paper left, most certainly not enough for the gift.  So...I threw the box away.  I have a bag filled with tissue paper, so I put everything in there.

Not huge, but I threw something away.  And now I can blog about what I threw away today.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Old Medicine

I've had other things on my mind this weekend this weekend, so I wasn't really thinking about things to throw away. (Sweet 16 baby!!) Tonight, however, I had a renewed sense of happiness related to filling up a trash bag.  With a little help from an organization blog, I decided to tackle my medicine cabinet.  I thought it looked pretty good because I cleaned it out a few months ago, but I still found a few tubes of this and packages of that that were expired. Out they went!  There is also a bottle of men's cologne that I'd like to get  rid of, but I really should ask my hubby about that because it's obviously his.  I'm hoping I can pitch it because he never wears it.  I also have a tube of toothpaste that I'm going to donate to my kid's preschool.  The older kids brush their teeth after lunch, and this is a flavor my kids don't like, so instead of throwing it away, I'll donate it.  Yay!

I still haven't tackled my hair accessories shelf yet though!

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Low Key, But Still A Win

Yesterday I went through the kids' toy bins again.  I didn't necessarily mean to, but many of their toys decided to take a bath, so I did some organizing as we were putting all the toys back.  I didn't throw out much, probably just a couple of McDonald's toys, but I'm OK with that.  The bonus is that the toys are organized again and some of them are clean!

Today I finally took out the Easter decorations.  Well, the tote they are in has been sitting in the living room for almost a week, I just opened it up today.  I have a bunch of plastic eggs that although I don't plan to use this year, I'm not going to throw away just yet.  I did throw away a handle-less basket.  I have a couple of large plastic eggs with clear lids that I thought about throwing away, but the boys said we could use them to put candy in this year.  We'll see.  I think whether or not I use them this year, they won't make it to next year.

(I also rec'd the dreaded work email that said my inbox was getting to full.  I permanently deleted some stuff, but didn't really go through much else.)

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Getting Back Into the Swing of Things

Yesterday I was able to make some progress at home and at work.  At work, I made another purge from my yearbook office.  I threw away a 2001 Penn State yearbook.  We have yearbooks from other schools so we can get ideas.  I'm not sure the trends of 2001 are still the trends of 2013.  Besides, now we have a 2011 edition.  At home, I was hoping to clean out the shelf of my linen closet that holds all my hair supplies and toiletries, but instead, I cleaned out two drawers in the kitchen.  I didn't get much thrown out, but I did reorganize and put things back in their homes where they belong.  I now have a drawer that stores only baking supplies...cookie cutters, dough roller, cupcake wrappers, etc.  However, I don't really bake.

Today, I vacuumed out the back seat of my car.  I wish I had taken a picture to show how gross it was.  Popcorn, candy, broken crayons...ugh!  Today was over 50 degrees finally, and the rain stopped.  It was a good night to go to the car wash to vacuum.  I'm hoping to get some more work done tonight as well.  We'll see.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Weekend Update

Not a bad weekend in terms of getting rid of things.  Saturday I went to a crop (scrapbooking) and there was a swap table.  I brought a bunch of things, and left them!  There weren't many people there, so not much of my stuff was taken, but the organizer took it all with her when we packed up, and will bring it to another crop she hosts.  I didn't take anything from the table!  Yay me!

Sunday I dropped off a bag of clothes at church.  It's been in the back of my car for weeks now, and to be perfectly honest, most of it was clothing I counted already in my early days of this blog.  The bag just hung around, then slowly made it's way to my car.  I did add to the bag, though, so I'm still counting it!  Ha!

I'm putting this challenge back on my priority list.  I need to!  I'm starting to feel overwhelmed again and getting rid of stuff really helps me out. My plan tonight is to tackle the shelf in my closet that holds all my hair supplies and various toiletries.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Bad Start, Great Finish

I threw nothing away Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of this week.  I can't believe it!  Well, I guess I can - I am just running around doing so many other things, that I'm forgetting to make it a point to throw things away.  I made up for it yesterday and today though.

Yesterday I threw away a bunch of old papers and catalogs from my yearbook office.  I know it's not my house, and it's not really my office, but it is an extended office of mine.  It really should be more of the responsibility of my student staff, however, my student staff and I really work in partnership together, and honestly, I don't think they care as much.  Most of the work they do on the yearbook is done on their computers in their own rooms, so really we only use the office for meetings.  Therefore, I do most of the cleaning.

Today I threw out two white sweaters.  Now that hurt.  At the end of last week, I put on a white sweater to wear to work.  As I'm getting ready in front of the mirror, I notice a light red stain right in the middle.  I threw it in the laundry, hoping I could try one more time to get the stain out.  I put another white sweater on in it's place.  That sweater looked like it had laundry detergent still in it in a huge patch on the side, that stretched way into the back and a little on the front.  I ended up wearing it to work because there was no one in the office but me, but then I was hoping to get the stain out after washing it again.  Needless to say, neither of the stains came out.  I loved that second sweater!  It looked great with a pair of jeans and a nice beaded necklace that I have.  I'm bummed, but they had to go.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Little Holes

Today I threw out a shirt belonging to my little one.  It used to belong to his big brother, so it certainly got it's use.  As I've been noticing in a few shirts lately, there was a small hole in the sleeve. The fun part about trashing this shirt, was I tried to let him rip it off his body.  It was a button down shirt, so I let him play Hulk.  Unfortunately, neither he nor his brother could do it, so daddy got the pleasure.  My little was perplexed that the buttons came flying off.  he he. Cutie!

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Things I Didn't Take Home

Since I knew it was going to be slow this week, I had planned on planning.  Most of that didn't happen, but another thing on my list was to shrink the two giant, messy piles of paper on my desk.  Although I didn't clear the piles completely, I probably got the piles down to at least half the size they were.  I recycled a lot of paper.  Some of it I was able to put aside because the backside can still be used - my kids can draw on it, and I have a great idea for making homemade recycled notepads that I'm anxious to do.  Some of the old paperwork I got rid of was dated 2010!  I know there is more that can just be tossed, I'll just take some more time to do that later.  I think I made great headway though.

Last night I was picking up the house, and threw a shirt away.  There was a necklace attached to it that was ruined in the wash.  I could have kept it aside and looked for a way to repair it, but I know me and it would have sat in the corner for months before I did anything with it.  I'm really not sure I could have repaired so I just tossed it.  I've had it for several years and have worn it plenty of times, so it wasn't too hard to get rid of.

My big thing for today wasn't anything I threw away, but rather something I didn't bring into the house.  My church had a big flea market today, so I took the boys to show my support.  I wasn't in the mood to really shop, so I think that was good - that means I didn't spend any money (at least not on flea market items) and didn't bring anything home!  I did let the boys each buy something, but one was a hot wheels car (a Mystery Machine) so that was tiny, and I'm sure it'll get used a lot, and the other was an Imaginext pirate castle thing, that can probably be stored in one of our toy bins, so that shouldn't be a space filler either.  I'm pretty proud of myself for not bringing too much home!!

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

More Email

Ok, I know I've done this before, but today was another day where I went through my office email, and permanently deleted lots of email.  Mostly spurred by the notices (note the plural) I received saying my inbox was near it's limit, this was a job I wanted to take on this week anyway.  My students are on spring break, so it'll be a slow week for me.  I want to do a lot of planning, and a lot of purging.  I'll slowly start with the email, and hopefully by the end of the week I'll only have one large pile of papers on my desk instead of two!

Monday, March 4, 2013

A Week's Worth

Well, I haven't been blogging, but I have been throwing things away.  Here is a little of what I did last week:

Valentines
Like his Kindergarten Christmas cards, these were his Kindergarten Valentines.  He has rec'd Valentines before, but these were his first truly in school.  Everyone in his class had to give one to every one else in the class, and the classroom was turned into a post office all week.  He got the chance to stamp, sort and deliver the mail.  I think it was a fun idea to turn this occasion into a lesson.  Valentines aren't just a folded piece of paper anymore. He rec'd pencils and tatoos and lollypops and erasers and stickers....  someone even made chocolate covered pretzels, which he loved!  A few of the cards were handmade.  I took this picture and threw all but one away, the one from his "sweetheart"  :).


Junk Drawer
This has been on my list of things to do for over a week now.  I have a storage container of drawers in my bedroom that are a mess.  I finally made the time this week to go through most of the drawers.  The big mess was the top drawer.  I took out anything that wasn't an office supply, and found new homes for those things, and I threw away stuff as well as put a few things in the donation box.  I went through one other drawer as well.  Those were the baddies.  The other two drawers are OK.  I'll go through those eventually, but I accomplished what I set out to do.

Car
The floors of my car are disgusting!  It's really more the floors of the backseat, surprise, surprise.  I've been getting into the habit of telling the kids they have to take out a few items to either throw away or take upstairs.  One day I might say, "Take 2 toys out with you to bring up stairs", another day it might be "Pick up three pieces of trash to throw away".  That trash goes immediately into the dumpster, before we even get inside the house.  Today, I had just hubby with me, so we were able to take out all the things that belonged in the house, and most of the big trash (like papers).  Now the back is mostly filled with old cereal and sand, but a quick trip to the car wash vacuums later this week should take care of that.  Now hopefully I can get there later this week.

This past weekend has been a big cleaning weekend. My "craft" table in my bedroom is usually a disaster.  It's the place for things that I otherwise don't know what to do with.  It's usually souvenir kinds of things, or pictures the boys have made. I cleaned off the entire thing, found some homes, and even made the time to scrapbook one page!  I threw out the remaining baby wash clothes and a plastic bib, which my youngest could probably use since he's so messy, but really too old now to use a bib.  I have two burp cloths left, but I'm keeping them as items to keep in my "toddler bag".  I may need it to wet down and clean a dirty boy.  I have a stack of receiving blankets too.  I'm pretty sure I'm ready to get rid of them, but I want to donate them to the SPCA so I haven't tossed them yet.  This week I'll check out its hours, and think about heading down with the boys.  They might get a kick out of seeing the animals.  I also took some pictures of our one of a kind wall hangings (aka boys' artwork) and recycled the originals.

Today we went through the house and cleaned pretty much from top to bottom - getting rid of a lot of dust!  Yuck!  Hubby even threw out a couple of stuffed animals with my blessing!  It was tough, but I'm OK.  I went organized the kids' bookshelf with all their puzzles and art supplies and games.  It wasn't too bad, but I did a great job at putting some things in folders and organizing baskets.  I feel great about it.  I threw out an art easel that they don't need, especially when the have others.  

Hopefully this week I can tackle some of the boys' artwork that I've been saving.